


all the way back home

by fairytalefix



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Baby Locksley Mills, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 01:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5562877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytalefix/pseuds/fairytalefix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His dad says staying with the fairies will be like his very own adventure.  His dad says, “Watch over your sister,” and, “You’re a good boy, Roland,” and, “I’ll be back soon.  I love you.” </p><p>Roland says <i>I love you</i> back and his voice is so so small because what he’s really thinking is <i>please please please don’t leave me, daddy.</i>  Because Mama had left and she hadn’t come back, and now there are more scary people in black hoods in the town and he knows his dad is going to go fight them because that’s what his dad does.  He fights the bad guys. He always beats them.  He always comes back.</p><p>(Mama fought bad guys, too. Mama didn’t come back.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the way back home

**Author's Note:**

> This story started as a headcanon, became a one shot, and then somehow morphed into a 5k fic about Roland's ridiculously complicated little life. Originally posted on tumblr.

His dad says staying with the fairies will be like his very own adventure. His dad says, “Watch over your sister,” and, “You’re a good boy, Roland,” and, “I’ll be back soon. I love you.” 

He says _I love you back_ and his voice is so so small because what he’s really thinking is _please please please don’t leave me, daddy_. Because Mama had left and she hadn’t come back, and now there are more scary people in black hoods in the town and he knows his dad is going to go fight them because that’s what his dad does. He fights the bad guys. He always beats them. He always comes back.

(Mama fought bad guys, too. Mama didn’t come back.)

“We’ll take good care of them, Robin,” Astrid says. She has the sort of smile that makes all the scary and all the unsure even out and feel a little bit more like okay. When her hand lands on his head, he doesn’t mind it as much as he usually does.

His dad hugs him one last time, kisses his sister’s forehead and lays her gently in Astrid’s arms.

“Mind Astrid,” he says, and Roland nods because his throat feels like crying, but he doesn’t want to cry. He’s a big brother now, and he thinks that maybe big brothers don’t cry when their dads leave on important missions.

His dad’s smile is more like a stretched out bowline than a real smile when he turns to leave, and Roland’s chest feels hollow like a cave because this leaving is happening too quickly. 

“He’ll be back soon,” Astrid tells him.

“After he helps make the world safe again,” Roland says. 

He wonders why making the world safe again feels so much like the world crumbling apart.

-

The fairies are nice, but nice in that tall, grown up way that turns the world into rules instead of letting it be the way it is. They don’t really know what to do with kids, which he thinks is weird because Henry told him once that fairies are born when children laugh for the first time, and shouldn’t people who come from laughter be more fun than other people? 

Astrid is fun. Astrid sneaks him extra scoops of ice cream and tells him fairy stories from the Enchanted Forest from back when fairies had wings and wands and were as small as snowflakes. He thinks that if he wanted a friend, Astrid would be a good choice.

But he feels like the inside of the convent—closed up and stuffy and far away from everyone else. His dad is helping making the world safe again. Regina and Henry went with him, and Regina can make fireballs and turn scary monkeys into stuffed monkeys. Henry can make stories, and he thinks those are two of the best superpowers ever. Emma’s there, too, and while he doesn’t know her very well, Henry’s told him that she’s very brave and very powerful. They’ll take care of each other, and everyone will come back. And one day he’ll have his bow, and he’ll be strong and very brave and he’ll make the world safe again, too.

-

He runs to the forest even though he knows he’s probably not supposed to because he’ll worry Astrid, but he feels too big when he’s behind walls. The stone floors rattle his foot bones, and he can run faster over dirt than carpet. Outside smells alive and clean and real. Inside smells like too many people. Too many voices asking him how he is and if he’s eaten. Too many hands patting his head. Too many smiles, too many hushed whispers. Too many people, not enough of the right people, and too too little sky.

So he sneaks three cookies off of the platter in the kitchen and slips out of the back door when no one’s looking. The first crisp shock of outside wriggles a smile out of him and he feels the forest again. He knows how to be quiet, how to step with equal weight. Step lightly with the front of his foot, up up on tip toes. Outside, he’s fast on forest feet and no one can catch him. He’s an arrow shot from a bow that never misses its target. 

-

It’s rained since they left, so the embers Little John buried on that last day, the day before everyone left, those embers have all gone out. That fire cooked their supper for weeks, and sealed the tips of his dad’s new arrows. Little John melted down metal and cooked potatoes in the coals. Will taught him how to hold a wooden sword after dinner one night when he should have been getting ready for bed. The Merry Men took turns telling stories and Alan sang songs and Little John laughed like happy thunder when Alan’s lute strings broke and Alan spewed words that weren’t meant for little ears.

He finds a stick—a good stick that isn’t wet and won’t break—and starts digging down to the embers. Maybe they haven’t all gone out. It’s only been a little while (there’ve been eight suns and seven moons) and maybe a few of the embers still remember fire. Maybe the rain didn’t soak all the way down.

He knows how to find the driest moss and the smallest sticks for kindling because that’s been his job since he was four. He knows which rocks strike sparks and how to hold them and hit them together so that the kindling catches fire. He’s never done all of it by himself before, and that makes his stomach a little heavy, but he’s been a good helper, a good lad, and he’s watched his dad build the fire over and over again. Maybe he can get the fire going. Maybe he can keep it burning until his dad comes back, like Mama used to keep a candle burning in the window when the nights were long and his dad was gone.

Digging down to the dry soil, he thinks the dirt is a little warmer. He smiles, but his eyes get cloudy; he’s happy, but his chest feels heavy. Wiping a sleeve across his eyes and gritting his teeth, he digs down deeper. He’ll keep a fire burning for his dad so he knows how to find his way back home again.

-

When the spark catches the tiny branches alight, he whoops like a great owl. Feeding the flames carefully and gradually, he makes his own little fire built from the embers of what his dad and the Merry Men left behind. The ground was still warm, he reminds himself. Eight suns and seven moons, and the ground was still warm. His dad is okay. His dad will come back. And he’ll get to tell his dad that he made a fire all by himself.

(Or maybe he won’t. Maybe his dad wouldn’t like that. He’ll figure it out later.)

The sky’s gone darker and his stomach rumbles. He pulls one of the cookies from his pocket, brushes off a bit of lint, and takes a big bite. Teeth crunching through the outside, they sink through the soft middle. The sugar dissolves on his tongue, and even though it’s in a cookie, the peanut butter still sticks to the insides of his cheeks. 

Cookies are different here, too. Sweeter and richer because sugar and butter aren’t what Mama called luxuries. In Storybrooke, they have lots of sugar and butter, and good, fine flour that’s white as winter instead brown like sawdust. But Mama made good sweets out of that brown flour and the syrup she tapped from trees. She mixed in the berries they had gathered in summer and dried until they were chewy and snappy with seeds. He helped mix in the fat when he got old enough, and once Mama let him crack in an egg. The cookies he helped her make were the best cookies, she said. His dad said so, too.

He hasn’t helped anyone make cookies in a long time. 

Even though he wants to gobble up all of his cookies, he only eats one because he doesn’t have a lot of food and someone always has to be minding the fire. He’s the only someone here, so it’s up to him. 

The forest feels bigger than it did when the Merry Men were here. They’ve gone into the town. Making repairs. Helping where they can. Little John used to sit across, whittling and whistling or mumbling to himself. He’s sitting where his dad sat when he was here, minding the fire and making sure the pops didn’t burn the trees. Alan would sing or strum, and Will would tell stories which became harder to understand the more he drank. He can see all of them if he imagines hard enough. See his merry family all still here, and maybe his mama, too. And Henry with his books and his backpack, and Regina–even though Regina didn’t come to their camp a whole lot. She comes this time because he’s imagining it and he wants her there. There’s a cradle for his sister because she makes him seem like a giant and nothing like a little man, and–

and one of the Merry Men would know how to be a big brother and they would teach him and make sure he didn’t mess it all up. He would hit the big brother bullseye every time and never miss. But he’s only six, and he doesn’t know how to be a big brother just like he doesn’t know how to shoot a real bow. And his dad left before he could teach him either.

He left both of them. He said “I love you,” but he still left. (Mama said I love you, and she left, too.) He and Regina still left. They left and told him to take care of his sister and mind Astrid, but he doesn’t know how to take care of a sister because he’s never had one before. 

But he knows how to watch the fire, and he knows how to make sure it doesn’t burn down the forest. He knows how to keep a candle burning because Mama taught him how. His dad hadn’t asked him to, but he had never asked Mama to light a candle either. She just did it. Everyone needed light, she had said. A light guiding their way back home. Maybe if he keeps the fire going, his dad would come home sooner and show him how to take care of a sister and shoot a bow and that–

that would make everything all right again.

His eyes become hot and wet, but he breathes in deep through his nose and says, “I’m a big brother, and not a little baby anymore.” So he won’t cry and he won’t be scared, even though the sky is darkening and cold is taking over. Pulling his cape tightly around his shoulders, he stokes the fire and watches the sparks pop above the flames, carefully watching and making sure that the trees stay safe.

–

He smells something like breakfast, which wakes him up slowly, but he hears something like sizzling, which wakes him up all at once. There’s a thick wool blanket wrapped around his body, a fluffy pillow tucked under his head, and dark canvas stretched out like a roof a few feet above. It’s a tent, just like the one he shared with his dad, but this one is blue and theirs is green. Someone’s walking around outside, a someone who doesn’t know how to walk around in a forest because their feet snap twigs and scuff rocks and scare all the animals away. 

His stomach rumbles at the something that smells an awful lot like breakfast, so he creeps out of the blanket and towards the tent flap. Peering outside, he sees the loose brown bun and blue robes of a fairy.

Astrid.

She doesn’t say anything when she slides two eggs and a piece of grilled bread onto a wooden plate and puts the plate on the ground outside his tent. His stomach makes the empty noises again, but he waits until she isn’t looking to snatch the plate inside. The eggs are hot and salty, and the yolks are runny enough to seep between the char marks of the bread. He wolfs all of it down, even though the food is hot enough that dad would make him blow on it first if he were here. Astrid’s bread crunches when she bites into it, and she hums a song that makes him think of birds flying through a blue sky and fluffy clouds. 

Even though his tummy is full, it feels funny like it does when he knows he didn’t do something quite all right, but his dad hasn’t caught him yet. He pokes his eye and half of his nose out of the tent flap. 

“Am I in trouble?” he asks.

Astrid swallows and wipes her the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Did you do something wrong?” she asks.

“I ran away.”

“You can only run away if nobody knows where you are,” Astrid tells him. “I did.”

The upper half of his body slides through the tent flap in indignation. “But I was quiet and careful!”

“You were very quiet and very careful,” Astrid agrees. “I was impressed by how quiet and careful you were.”

He smiles, but doesn’t mean to smile so he tucks the smile away. The weird empty feeling in his stomach gone. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Then how did you find me?”

“Where else would you go?”

“Oh.” He thinks of Regina’s house and the park. The harbor and the ice cream shop. He wouldn’t go to any of those places, not when he could run back home. “Nowhere else.” He squints up at her. “You’re smart.”

“Thanks. There’s one more piece of toast. Wanna split it?”

He folds back the flap of the tent and crawls out, his knees getting deliciously dirty. “Yes, please.” Astrid doesn’t say anything about getting dirty. She just rips the bread in half and gives him the bigger piece.

“You’re good at cooking,” he says around a mouthful. 

Her laugh sounds like stars singing. “Thanks, but I think it’s more likely that you’re really hungry.”

“Not anymore,” he says. “My tummy is gonna be _really_ full.”

“Good.” 

The fire cracks and sparks while he nibbles his bread. “I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep,” he tells her quietly, like he does when he tells his dad a shameful something. “I was supposed to keep the fire going.”

“No one can keep a fire going without help, bud,” Astrid says. “We took shifts. That’s what the Merry Men do, right?”

Little John takes over after his dad, he remembers, and Friar Tuck likes to wake up before the birds start singing so he can pray and feed the fire hotter for breakfast. “Yeah,” he says, taking a big bite of his bread. “We help each other.”

“Like a family,” Astrid says, and she’s smiling, but her eyes are sad and the air around them gets a little tight.

“Are the fairies your family?” he asks and pops the rest of the bread into his mouth, wishing he had a glass of milk or a mug of hot chocolate to wash it down. 

“Yeah,” Astrid says. “I guess you could say that.” But she drops the stick she’d been poking into the fire and runs her hands briskly up and down her legs. “I could really go for a cup of tea. What would you say to a trip to Granny’s?”

“You can go. I have to watch the fire and make sure it doesn’t go out or burn down the forest.” He has to keep a candle burning.

“What if I enchant it to keep burning, but not burn out of control?”

He frowns. “You mean use magic?”

“Yes,” she says. “Would that be okay? The magic would be like another person helping us tend the fire.”

His dad usually avoids magic if he can help it, but his dad was happy when Regina used magic to heal his little, scraped up knees, and that night when he couldn’t sleep and Regina poofed up a mug of warm chamomile milk, his dad had been happy, then, too. So maybe magic was okay sometimes, like when you were thirsty and really wanted a mug of hot chocolate, but also had to make sure you didn’t start a forest fire.

“I think so,” he says. He pulls out the big eyes that made Mama boop his nose and turned most of Regina’s nos into yeses. “Can I get a hot chocolate?”

“Only if you get extra whipped cream,” Astrid says without looking at him.

_“Extra whipped cream? Really?”_

“Unless you don’t want–”

“I DO!” he cried, and leaped up from the ground. “Granny’s hot chocolate is the best.” He claps a hand over his mouth, his eyes big now because he promised himself he would never ever say that out loud. “Don’t tell Regina I said that. I told her that she makes the best hot chocolate and I don’t want her to be sad.”

Astrid winks at him. “My lips are sealed.” One wave of her hand and a field of pink sparkles make a globe around the fire. A log cracks and shoots sparks out towards the globe. The sparks blaze bright pink then fizzle out when they hit the magic.

“Wow,” he whispers, his mouth open in a gape. “Your magic is really pretty,” he says. “I’ve never seen pink magic before.”

Astrid smiles wide when his fingers slide into her palm. “I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s way more sparkly than the other fairies.”

“I like sparkles and sparkly things,” she says as they begin walking back towards the town. “Stars and fireflies. Fireworks. And I really, really like pink.”

“Me, too,” he tells her. “Don’t tell my dad, but pink is my most favorite color.”

“Why can’t your dad know that?”

“'Cause he thinks my favorite color is green.”

“Like your cape?”

“My cape is green so I can hide in the forest. I couldn’t hide with a pink cape.”

“You could pretend to be a flower.” She jiggles his hand in hers. “Besides, you’d look pretty fantastic in a sparkly pink cape.”

“I’d look like a super hero! Like Spiderman, only pink!” A pink Spiderman would be even better than a red Spiderman. “I’d be the Pink Forest Avenger!”

Astrid laughs like stars again and he laughs, too. “Come on, Pink Forest Avenger, let’s get some hot cocoa.”

“Do you think Granny has pink sprinkles? Like the chocolate ones she puts on the donuts, only pink?”

“I don’t know, but we can certainly ask.”

“I hope she does, an–and I hope they taste like _strawberries_.”

–

Granny does have pink sprinkles and he thinks they taste like the berries he gathered with Mama during the summer which is way better than tasting like strawberries. He scoops them off of the whipped cream with his finger before Astrid hands him a spoon. When the candy melts in his mouth and melds with the cream, he can almost taste the bowls of oats with milk and berries he ate in the Enchanted Forest. 

“Some of the things are better here,” he tells Astrid, “but some of them aren’t.”

“Like what?” Astrid asks. He likes that she asks questions instead of telling him how to feel.

“I like playing video games with Henry and reading comic books,” he says. “And ice cream and hot chocolate. I like sleeping inside when it’s raining or really cold because inside is warmer than outside. I like that I don’t get sick as much, even if I have to wash my hands all the time.” The sprinkles still left in the whipped cream make puddles of pink and he sighs. “But I miss the Forest and our house. And–” His throat gets tight and he looks down at his lap.

“What is it, bud?”

“I miss Mama,” he says softly, willing himself not to cry. “But I don’t think I’m supposed to miss her.”

“Why do you think that?”

“'Cause Regina’s here now, and she’s like a mom, so I have one again. And I have a little sister, but her mama isn’t my mama. Regina isn’t even her mama.” He swipes his sleeve across his nose. “But dad says she’s still my sister. She’s my family.” That tight feeling in his throat comes back, but he swallows it down. “I don’t know how to have a sister, Astrid.”

Astrid’s eyes get dark and very serious and she says, “You listen to me, okay?”

He nods.

“You can miss your Mama. It is okay to miss people you love when they aren’t here anymore. No matter how many other–” She pauses, her mouth puckered like she’s looking for something. “No matter how many other relationships your dad has, your mama is gonna be special to you.”

“Because I came out of her tummy,” he says.

But Astrid shakes her head. “Not that. She was the person who taught you how to love. She loved you first, before anybody else. That person is very important and they will always be important, no matter how many other people love you.”

He nods and swallows hard. “She is very important.” He remembers that his baby sister is back at the convent with the nuns. His dad said to take care of your sister, but he isn’t sure how his sister is his sister and he doesn’t know how to take care of one even if she is. “Is my sister really my sister?” he asks quietly. 

Astrid sits back in her seat and doesn’t say anything for a really long time. He wonders if she’s mad or he said something wrong, but when he sneaks a glance at her, her face is all crumpled up, like she’s thinking really hard and feeling sad at the same time. Finally, she says, “Do you know what family is?”

He nods. “The people who love you and keep you safe. They tuck you in at night and smile when they see you in the morning.”

“How many people love you and keep you safe?”

“Does Mama count?”

“Of course she does.”

Okay. He holds up a hand and lifts a finger for every name. “Daddy and Mama and Regina and Henry and Little John and Friar Tuck and Will and Alan.” Eight of his fingers are raised, which is almost two whole hands. “I have a lot of people who love me,” he says.

“You certainly do. You love them back, right?”

He nods. “Yes,” he says. “But I can’t shoot a bow yet, so I can’t keep them safe.”

“That’s okay,” Astrid assures him. “Did all of those people come from the same mama?”

He bursts out laughing. “No! That’s silly!”

“But they’re still your family, right?”

Immediately, he stops laughing and it feels like his chest is getting bigger and bigger. “Yeah,” he says, smiling. “So my sister can be my family even if we didn’t come from the same Mama.”

“Absolutely.”

“You’re really smart, Astrid.”

She sighs a little, like his dad does when something dangerous slinks back into the forest. “Thanks, bud.” 

The whipped cream in his mug has turned into a floof of white with pink polka dots. He uses a little straw and turns the dots into swirls. “Do you think we can go see my sister after Granny’s?”

“I think we can.”

“I think I’d like that.”

–

His sister is teeny tiny, and her face is kind of squishy, but Astrid tells him that that’s what new babies look like because they were all squished up inside their mama. 

“Was my face squishy when I was new?” he asks quietly, not because it’s important, but because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Yes,” Astrid tells him. He believes her because she’s smart.

“Does she know that I’m her brother?”

“Do you see how quietly she’s sleeping?” Astrid asks him. “How she’s not worried or concerned about what’s going on around her?”

“Yes.”

“She must feel pretty safe, huh?”

He smiles. Families love each other and keep each other safe. “Yeah,” he says. “She knows she’s safe ‘cause she’s with family.”

Astrid rubs his back, her eyes bright like stars. “Looks like you’re pretty good at this big brother thing.”

That makes him feel less heavy. He can hit the big brother bullseye even if he doesn’t know quite where it is yet.

-

One night, when he and Astrid are tending the fire, she looks way up into the sky and says, “Hey, bud. Come here.”

He clambers into her lap and looks up to where she’s pointing.

“You see that star?” 

Out here, far away from all of the lights of the town, the sky sparkles like Astrid’s magic with big shining clouds trailing through it. “I see lots of stars. There’s so many.”

“The really, really bright one at the handle end of the Big Dipper.”

He squints one eye closed and stretches his neck way up to follow her finger. There, like the tip fell off the end of the dipper’s handle, shines a star brighter than all of the stars around it. “Yeah! I see it!” 

“That’s Polaris, the North Star. It helps lost travelers find their way home again.”

“With magic?”

“With knowledge, which is almost as good, but not nearly as sparkly.”

“And not pink.”

“And not pink. When you face Polaris, you’re facing north. That means east is to your right and west is to your left.”

“And south is behind you.”

“Who’s the smart one, now, huh?”

“Me,” he says, because he is. “It’s like Mama’s candle burning in the sky.”

“You betcha.”

He takes a big breath and settles back against Astrid’s chest, his eye on the bright, bright star. He hadn’t known that this world had a guiding star, too. That star is important, just like his mama is still important even though she isn’t here anymore, and just like his sister is important.

“Polly,” he says softly.

“What?”

“Polly,” he repeats. “My sister’s name is Polly, after the light in the sky that makes sure people get home okay.” He cranes his neck around to look up at her. “She needs a name. Names help keep us safe. Everyone calls her 'Baby,’ but there are lots of babies. What if they confuse her for another baby?” Astrid’s chest vibrates with a hum, and he asks, “Do you think that’s okay?”

She wraps her arms around him and squeezes him tight. “I think that’s a beautiful name, Roland. A beautiful, perfect name.”

–

Some nights he crawls out of bed and creeps over to Polly’s bassinet to tell her stories of the Enchanted Forest and how their dad used to be a thief but isn’t anymore. He tells her about his mama and says that even though his mama isn’t her mama and she isn’t here, she would still love her and make her sweet cakes in the fire and sew her a cape to keep her warm. If his mama were here, she would do that, he says.

Dad is strong and brave, he tells her. He isn’t here now, but he’s coming back. He is. He’s coming back. Polly’s fingers are pudgy, pink, and small, but he thinks she’ll hold a bow someday and hit the bull’s eye every time. 

Just like their dad. Just like his mama.

–

He doesn’t want to because he’s a big brother now and he has to help Polly feel safe, but one night he starts crying because Daddy’s been gone too long and Mama’s never coming back and Daddy only brought one quiver of arrows which isn’t enough for the number of days he hasn’t been here. The door creaks open and lamp light spills in, so he wipes a flannel sleeve across his eyes and under his nose because he’s a big brother and he’s not supposed to cry as much anymore. 

“Hey, buddy,” he hears Astrid say softly, and he doesn’t know why her soft soft voice makes his eyes blurry with tears again. He doesn’t know why seeing her makes his arms go up like he’s a little kid and not a big brother. He thinks he should be embarrassed, but the scared and the sad have grown too big for him to care. Astrid sweeps him up and doesn’t say hush, hush, stop crying, and doesn’t tsk, tsk when his tears make wet spots on the shoulder of her blue robes. But her face turns sad and her shoulder kind of droops, like it’s her dad who’s gone and it’s her mama who’s never coming back. She wraps her arms around him tight and holds him even after the tears stop coming. 

“He’s coming back,” he says. 

“Of course he is.” But it’s been a long time since he left and her voice isn’t as sure as it was when it had only been eight suns instead of sixteen.

“Will you take care of me and Polly if he doesn’t?” he asks.

She whispers, “Oh, oh, oh,” softly, softly, like the wind sometimes whispers through the branches when winter’s stripped the leaves away, and hugs him tighter and says, “Count on it, buddy. You’re not ever gonna be alone, okay?”

He sniffles and thinks that he can teach his sister how to shoot a bow even if his dad–. “Okay,” he says and wipes his eyes to wipe away that thought. “You’re my family, aren’t you, Astrid? You and Polly are my family, too.”

Astrid doesn’t say anything, just hugs him tighter, and he thinks that’s as good as a yes, and that he is a very lucky little man to have two whole hands of people who love him and who smile when they see him in the morning.

–

And after thirty-three suns of playing and crying and making sure the fire’s still going; after laughing and making sand castles and running through the forest in a new pink cape and eating more ice cream than his dad would ever let him eat,

his dad finally finally comes home. 

He runs as fast as he can down the muddy driveway, his smile big and his arms flung wide, his feet like wings. He leaps when he gets close enough and his dad snatches him out of the air and twirls him all around and around. He gets a scritchy scratchy kiss on his cheek and the best bear hug his dad’s every given him. Over his dad’s shoulder, he sees Astrid smiling and coming towards them, the rest of the fairies trailing behind her. 

When his feet hit the ground again, Roland grabs his dad’s hand and drags him over towards Astrid and says, “This is Astrid. She’s part of my family now because I love her and she loves me.”

His dad smiles big at her and says, “It seems you found your fairy godmother while I was away.”

He gasps and grins and whoops loud. “I did! Astrid! You’re my fairy godmother!”

“Oh,” Astrid says hesitantly, “I–”

“And what a lovely fairy godmother she is.”

He looks up and his insides get cold because it’s the Blue Fairy. But Astrid doesn’t step away from her like she normally does. Instead, Astrid steps towards her, her mouth falling open and tiny tears sparkling down her cheeks.

“Really?” she asks in that soft, soft voice, like someone’s given her a present that she’s wanted her whole life.

Blue nods and actually smiles. It’s a nice smile, the sort of smile a teacher would have when you got something right after getting it wrong for a long time. For a second, he isn’t scared of her, even though she made Astrid cry.

She says, “You’ve earned it, Nova,” and waves her wand over Astrid’s head. He’s wondering who Nova is, but Astrid is laughing while she’s crying and then she flings her arms around the Blue Fairy, saying, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

He’s not sure what just happened, but if Astrid is happy enough to hug the Blue Fairy, it must be a good thing.

“That means you’re really my family, right?” he asks. 

Astrid dabs at her eyes with her fingertips and nods eagerly. “Yeah, buddy,” she says. “It sure does. I will always be your family now.”

He throws his arms as high up around her as he can reach and hangs on tight. His dad and Regina and Henry are back, Polly is safe and sleeping, and he has a fairy godmother who loves pink and sparkles and knows that it’s important to always keep a fire burning.

He turns back to his dad, holds up his hands with his fingers all splayed, and says, “Daddy, did you know that I have two whole hands of people who love me?”

“Wow!” he says. “That’s a lot of people. You’re a lucky little man, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he says. “I am.” He grabs his dad’s hand and he grabs Astrid’s hand and starts pulling them towards the convent. “We have to show Polly that you’re here. She’s missed you a lot. I’ve been telling her stories about you and Regina and Henry so she would know you when you got back.”

“Hold on, Roland,” his dad says, dropping to one knee. “Who’s Polly?”

“Polly is my sister,” he says softly. “She needed a name, so I gave her one.” He points up to the sky. “After the star that sparkles bright and leads everyone back home…like the candle Mama used to light for you when you were away.” He bites his lip when his dad looks down at the grass instead of right at him. “Is-is that okay, Daddy?”

“Yeah,” his dad says in a sandpaper voice. His dad clears his throat and kisses Roland’s forehead hard, which turns into another one of his dad’s great big bear hugs that make him feel tall and strong and safe. “That’s a perfect name, Roland,” he says. “You found her perfect name.” 

“No,” he says, pulling back to see his dad’s face. “Me and Astrid did.” He looks up at her and smiles. “She’s really smart.”

Astrid blushes.

“Maybe Astrid is the fairy godmother of both of my children.”

“There’s nothing I’d rather be,” Astrid says, her cheeks still flushed pink.

“There’s nothing I’d rather you be, either,” Roland says quickly, taking her hand. “Now, come _on!_ We have to tell Polly you’re home! She’s been worried!”

Astrid laughs like stars singing and his dad chuckles like a grizzly bear and he holds two hands of people who love him. 

He’s a lucky little man, indeed.


End file.
